Owen Gleiberman Chief Film Critic“The Prank” is no big whoop, but for a good stretch it’s a tartly written, engagingly nasty little comedy of high-school vengeance.
It’s set during the senior year of Ben (Connor Kalopsis), the kind of eager, obsessive-compulsive overachiever who prints out several backup copies of his homework assignments, and Tanner (Ramona Young), a hacker, high on energy drinks, who’s his equally brainy but less responsible best friend.
These two exist in their own unpopular cloistered geek space. But then fate throws a curveball at the striving-to-be-perfect Ben.His AP physics class is run by the most infamous teacher at West Greenview High: a veteran instructor named Mrs.
Wheeler — played, in a performance of must-see deviousness and passive-aggressive glee, by Rita Moreno. Mrs. Wheeler, with great pride, presents herself as the ultimate stern taskmaster, a kind of knowingly formidable teacher-as-drill-sergeant.
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